FOLDING THE FLAG

With a lover or friend
stretch it out waist-height
and parallel to the ground.
Fold lengthwise so blue midnight

with its strict constellation
vanishes under pure white
and blood red, a frisson
along the stripes, shot

between you. Fold again
lengthwise, a lot like unmaking
a bed in which no one
is ever just sleeping.

The stars should stay outside
as in the universe.
From the stripy end, fold
it up in small triangles,

kissing when you meet.
Tuck in the end, creating
a cocked newspaper hat
from whole cloth, a thing

useful in comforting
a suddenly public wife
suddenly veiled, her gold ring
shining like eternal life,

like moist eyes, like the bright stars
in her jaunty souvenir cap,
the weight of their universe
pressing into her lap.

-- Jay Rogoff

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Reprinted from Loving in Truth: New and Selected Poems, published by Louisiana State University Press. Copyright © 2008, 2020 by Jay Rogoff.

“Folding the Flag” was written during the Iraq War, when the Bush administration forbade news media from showing our soldiers’ flag-draped coffins. Jay Rogoff has published eight books and will serve as Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs, NY, working at the intersection of the personal & the public & putting together readings, workshops, and other activities. His term runs calendar 2026 & 2027 & will include the 250th anniversaries of the Declaration & the Battle of Saratoga.